For me, the ideal work headphones would have to be open and extremely comfortable. And they better sound pretty damn good as well. To further this purpose, I have acquired the Sennheiser 580 and 590. As a preliminary matter, I feel that I should let everyone know that I purchased the 580s new. At present, they have about 50-100 hours of mileage on them. The 590s, purchased used, have closer to 200 hours of use on them. I am reviewing them in their stock form, free from any tweaking whatsoever.
My personal preferences are also relevant as they certainly color this review. I’m not a bass fanatic, but that’s an understatement. I confess that I probably prefer less bass than most people – keep that in mind. Also, to further acquaint you with my tastes, if Etymotic Research came out with a full size, circumaural headphone that sounded like the 4x series with the soundstage improvement of a full-size, open phone, I would purchase it and be done with the matter.
Not surprisingly, both phones meet my comfort requirement, with the edge going to the 590s because of their light weight. On to the sound…
I. Acoustic Guitar
Being a guitar player, I often listen to acoustic guitar music for comparison purposes. I know very well how acoustic guitar sounds, and can thus evaluate how accurately a pair of headphones reproduces the instrument. Of course, I realize how the recording is manipulated, but I feel that comparing to live sound is the best I can do.
Compared to the 580, the 590 seems to resonate more – the “decay” of the plucked string is slower and longer. While this particular quality varies from guitar to guitar, it sounds as if the sustain is just a bit unnatural. Additionally, the lower notes are significantly more pronounced. I certainly wouldn’t call the 590s boomy – it’s rather controlled. However, the bass notes on the guitar creep into the unpleasant zone. I suspect I could cure this by a careful EQ adjustment.
Both phones sound good to me, but overall I give the nod to the 580s not only for the above reasons, but as a whole I think the acoustic guitar music that I listened to sounded more realistic with the 580s.
II. The Battle of the Reverend
Next, I compared “The Reverend” segment of the “Battle of Epping Forrest” on Genesis album Selling England By the Pound. I chose this piece for the very nice snare/hi-hat (I think) combination played pretty much throughout the segment by a Phil Collins not yet soiled by his inability to dance and free from even the yearning to write a Disney score. When listening to this track with the 580s for the past few weeks, I was struck by how excellent it sounded. I could really appreciate the precision of even strike of the hi-hat.
As said, I chose this piece because of how nice it sounded with 580s. The 590s did an admirable job with the piece as well, but with a tad of the high hat sound missing. I found the difference subtle, but the 580 was a bit more realistic.
III. Close to the Edge
One of my all-time favorite pieces of music. The introduction is so busy that it turns lesser headphones into murky, plodding poop – not so with either of these phones. The first time through I tried to follow individual instrument lines throughout the introduction. I was able to easily follow the guitar (obviously), the drums and keyboards with the 580s. The bass guitar was slightly more difficult. The 590s made it much easier to follow the bass guitar. Additionally, the fairly high frequency keyboard track struck out more as well. The slightly muffled sound of the 580s’ midrange really hurts them here. While I found the 590s to also have the slightly muffled character in the midrange as well, it is surely less. I preferred the 590s when listening to this track, and suspect I would for most fast, busy music.
IV. Conclusions
Since these phones would be used for the same purpose, it is my intention to decide which one I like more and sell the other. That decision is still far off, and will require much more listening. Also, I wanted to tweak both the 580s and 590s a bit. I also have a Vision 1 cable to try with the 590s. However, the pushed bass concerns me. I'll update this thread with more impressions as they come to me. Time to do some more listening!